Thoughts on the Geospatial industry, Open Standards and Open Source, sometimes with an Australian flavour.

Thursday, 30 May 2013

OGC heed community pressure regarding "GeoServices REST API"

Following on from significationdiscussionandconcern from OSGeo and OGC communities, members of the OGC have withdrawn the "Geoservices REST API" candidate OGC standard.
Thank you to all the people who have voiced their concerns, thank you to
those who provided detailed reasoning and analysis, and thank you to
the OGC and OGC members who have acknowledged and have started
actioning this reasoning. You are contributing toward a better OGC
for us all.
Carl
Reed, CTO and Executive Director of OGC Standards Program made the following announcement:

On Tuesday of this week, the GeoServices REST API Standards Working Group (SWG) voted to approve the following recommendation to the TC Voting Members:

The GeoServices REST SWG recommends the Technical Committee (TC) approve withdrawal of the motion to approve the OGC GeoServices REST API documents as an official OGC standard.

Moved: Keith Ryden. Second: Clemens Portele. There was no objection to unanimous consent.
The following is the reason for requesting the motion to approve the candidate standard be withdrawn:

“Considering the breath of discussion both internal and external to the OGC process since the vote announcement, the SWG members feel that the vote cannot continue until the many questions raised have been addressed. Issues regarding OGC process, vendor advantage, duplication of capabilities, etc. have now overshadowed technical discussions of the merits of the specification. By withdrawing the OGC GeoServices REST API candidate standard, the necessary discussions regarding OGC process, policy, and position can continue separately.”

The SWG further discussed the need for OGC Members and staff to debate, clarify and potentially amend a number of policy and procedural issues before the SWG can decide to either disband or to resume technical work on the candidate standard.
Today or tomorrow the TC Chair (me) will be asking the TC Voting Members to consider the GeoServices REST API SWG recommendation. The motion is:

"The GeoServices REST API SWG recommends that the GeoServices adoption vote be withdrawn. If there is no objection to unanimous consent in the next 10 calendar days, then the motion is approved. If there are objections, than a two week e-vote will be initiated."

Over the coming months there will be opportunities for OGC staff, members and the general public to engage in discussions related to policy and procedures, such as clear statements on openness and interoperability, overlapping standards, backwards compatibility and so forth. The idea is to begin a dialogue as part of the virtual meetings this and next month with a goal to address the issues raised and recommend changes at the upcoming September Frascati meetings.
I would like to thank the SWG for all of their hard work on the candidate standard. I would also like to thank everyone who contributed to the conversation.